Oh heck.I wished Penelope would be more subtle about her requests for help. Because Helen’s looks were getting darker and darker.
In response, I smiled pleasantly at her and at Pen. “Sure, of course.”
I’d been going nonstop since 8:30. It was nearing lunchtime, and my stomach was in knots because I had to tell my partners that I was possibly going to be a mom before the week’s end, asChildren’s Services would be determining the baby’s fate—and my fate—sometime over the next several days. This news was going to upend our already rocky practice. Every minute felt like an hour. My stomach butterflies had butterflies.
I’d been suffering in this practice for ten months, trying to save Penelope’s ass and placate Helen, who was a brilliant clinician, worked at half-effort because she could and because I worked doubly hard. Helen was completelysink or swim, had no compassion for Pen, and never helped her. So that fell on me too.
“Hey, you two,” I said before I walked into the exam room with Pen, “I need to talk to you during lunch, okay?”
“What lunch?” Helen asked. “There’s a nasty flu bug going around. We’re double-booked all afternoon.”
“It will only take a few minutes,” I said in a level tone. “It’s important.”
We often worked through lunch. Or at least I did. I knew that Helen snuck into her office, closed the door, and ate regardless of what was going on. I knew this because I smelled the delicious lunches that she warmed up in the microwave each day.
She must have never played sports, partaken in student government, or joined any extracurricular club involving working with people because she earned zero stars from me on her team-playing skills.
I followed Pen into the exam room, bracing to find a lethargic toddler clinging to consciousness. Instead, a blond curly-haired little guy in a diaper was drooling and noisily crinkling up the exam table paper while his mother stood guard next to him. He looked up with giant blue eyes and shot us a giant, mostly toothless grin.
Oh, joy. I blew out a pent-up breath. Whatever little Henry had, it wasn’t that bad.
“Well, hello,” I said. “Aren’t you handsome?” I turned to the tired-looking woman standing against the exam table. “I’m AniGreen, one of the doctors. Is it okay if I have a peek in Henry’s ears? It gets challenging to tell what’s going on when a child cries.”
I went on to ask Henry’s mom if he was tugging on his ears, rubbing them against his bed, crying when he lay down, or crying at night in general.
No, no, no, and no. Plus he’d been around his cousin, who probably had that flu bug going around.
I turned to Pen. “Were you able to tell if there’s any bulging? Air fluid level? Poor movement of the eardrum?” These were the questions we asked med students and residents. I asked them now because I wanted to know what she’d seen so I could help her figure it out herself.
“It was bright red,” she said, “and I couldn’t get a good seal to puff some air in there.”
I tackled Henry—gently of course—and did my job. It wasn’t ever easy. Examining eardrums was pretty much a war zone. You had to be quick, confident, and have a good eye. I got coughed on a few times, but other than that, got out unscathed.
Pediatricians had Olympic-strength immunity, by the way. If I had a dime for the number of times I got sneezed, drooled, or snotted on, I’d be a bazillionaire.
“I feel pretty confident that his ears are normal,” I said when I came up for air.
“Oh, that’s terrific,” Henry’s mom said as I handed him to her.
Back in the hall, Pen said, “I hate to miss something with that high of a fever. Maybe I should treat him with an antibiotic anyway.”
“Penelope.” As I leveled my gaze on her, I could see that she was practically twitching with nerves. “Henry doesn’t have an ear infection. He most likely has a virus.”
“Are you sure?” Her expression was pained.
Ah, that was the golden question. As a doctor, if you couldn’t live with uncertainty, you wouldn’t last long. Funny, but they didn’t teach you that in med school. For years you got nearly perfect grades in every single course you undertook because you learned the black-and-white answers, A, B, C, or D. Then you got confronted by a human person who often didn’t play by the rules.
Humans almost never played by the rules. Especially men. That was why I sucked at relationships.
And Penelope didn’t handle uncertainty well. She wanted yes and no answers. But I kept hoping that with coaching and encouragement, she’d turn the corner and become a great doctor.
“I’m ninety-nine percent sure,” I said. “And you know why.”
“Right.” She didn’t sound like she knew. But I knew she knew, because she’d aced every exam from every prestigious institution she’d attended with flying colors.
“Tell me why.” I put my hands up, poised to count the reasons off on my fingers.
“Um, he looks good.”
